The best record players for any budget in 2019

We may be in the streaming age, but this hasn't stopped vinyl sales booming. Audiophiles and analogue devotees, as well as digital converts, are rediscovering the joys of records. Here we pick our top record players for any budget

Some revivals are a triumph of hype over reality - the current Suede comeback, for starters. But the 21st century’s enduring passion for vinyl records has a little more substance beyond fetishising an ancient technology. Vinyl satisfies on a number of fundamental levels - tactility, for instance, and (most fundamental of all) quality of sound. Here are the best turntables 2018’s money can buy, no matter if that money is less than £150 or more than £8k.

WIRED Recommends: Rega Planar 3/Elys 2

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Pros: Smooth, clean looks; thrilling soundCons: We’ll have to get back to you

In one version or another, the Rega P3 (or, as it’s currently called, the Planar 3) has been around for the thick end of 40 years. And it’s a measure of how right Rega got this deck at the outset that the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies more strongly here than in any other example of the elderly technology in this list.

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So, far from fixing it, Rega has simply refined the Planar 3 until it represents the pinnacle of what can be achieved at this sort of money (you can buy a plain Rega 3 for £550, but the extra £100 spent on the company’s Elys 2 cartridge is money extremely well spent). A bit of visual polish, in the shape of a gloss-finish plinth and glass platter, is augmented by class-leading tone-arm, subplatter, motor and main bearing.

The result is remarkable fidelity, effortless communication, fine balance between analysis and engagement, and an almost palpable zeal for the music you choose to listen to. Getting information organised to the point it sounds as casually correct as this is no mean feat, at any price. At this sort of money it’s almost witchcraft.

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Best record player under £200: Pro-Ject Primary E

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Pros: Most of the performance for a fraction of the costCons: Will only encourage your vinyl habit

Want to get into vinyl but a) don’t want to spend an arm and a leg, and b) don’t have a degree in mechanical engineering? Never fear. Pro-Ject may be the answer.

You can’t expect the Earth for £150 and, sure enough, the Primary E isn’t the most luxurious-looking (or -feeling) turntable. But from its hard-wired RCA connections, though its pre-adjusted tracking weight to its very agreeable Ortofon cartridge, this Pro-Ject has it where it counts.

Most of all, it makes the virtues of vinyl absolutely obvious. It’s not the most detailed sounding record player in this list, but it’s an entertaining and enjoyable listen. Smoothly easy-going where Spotify files or CDs are spiky and edgy, the Primary E is a classic gateway drug. Six months on the Pro-Ject and you’ll be mainlining vinyl for the rest of your life.

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Best for ripping vinyl: Audio Technica AT-LP5

Pros: Creates great digital copies and sounds greatCons: There are none

Vinyl is a format that demands you live with its downsides. Records degrade every time you play them, they’re a faff to store and it’s a pain to have to get up every 15 minutes to turn them over. But the AT-LP5 lets you have your great-sounding cake and eat it, too.

The AT-LP5 features a USB output for connection to your computer. Just fire up the supplied Audacity software and your can copy your precious vinyl to your computer at CD-standard 16bit/44.1kHz – so not only do your precious records not have to come out of their sleeves constantly, you can listen to all that rare music you love (the stuff Spotify has never heard of) anywhere you like.

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But even without this winning feature, the AT-LP5 has plenty going for it. The money buys fine build quality, a AT95EX cartridge on a J-shaped tonearm and, crucially, wide-open and hard-hitting sound. It’s the analogue device that digital devotees have been waiting for.

Best for convenience: Pro-Ject Juke Box E

The Pro-Ject Juke Box E is both brilliantly convenient and a bit of a bargain. Short of speakers, everything you need to build a 21st-century music centre that embraces both analogue and digital audio is here.

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Housed within the Juke Box E’s nicely finished body is 25 watts of amplification, Bluetooth connectivity and analogue inputs for attaching another source, be it a CD player, games console or anything else that takes your fancy. So once you’ve strapped on a pair of speakers, the delights of vinyl are yours just as easily as the slightly different delights of music-streaming from a smartphone.

And let there be no confusion: Pro-Ject knows exactly what it is doing when it comes to turntables at this sort of money. The Juke Box E is a warm, detailed listen, with all of the vinyl virtues of great timing and rhythm management you’d hope for.

Best for audiophiles: Clearaudio Concept

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High among the many admirable traits about Germany is its language’s ability to squeeze complex concepts into a single word. Just have a glance at Clearaudio’s website: on the page entitled "In Peace Lies Strength," there’s a translation of the word Gesamtkunstwerk. It means: "a complete work of art that draws on many forms".

And high among the many admirable traits about German hi-fi heroes Clearaudio is the company’s ability to turn out a high-performance record player, one that’s elegant, beautifully finished, stylish and superb-sounding, without charging sell-a-kidney money for it. That’ll be the Concept turntable.

Laudable as much for its plug’n’play simplicity – it has automatic speed change, for example, which is like Kryptonite to most audiophile decks – as for its thrillingly direct and revealing sound, the Concept is among the most painless high-end record players you’ll ever encounter. Plus it has the sort of understated good looks that are shorthand for "exquisite good taste". Which is Gesamtkunstwerk in anyone’s language.

Best for industrial design aficionados: VPI Prime

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Pros: As elegant and precise as a scalpelCons: "Less is more" is a tricky sell at this money

By the standards of New Jersey natives VPI Industries, at a touch over £4,000 the Prime is one the company’s more mainstream turntables.

(Naturally that’s the price for the deck and 3D-printed, unipivot arm. Prospective owners should budget to spend maybe £1k on an appropriate cartridge.)

When you’re dropping the equivalent price of a nice clean second-hand BMW on a record player, you’re entitled to expect something above and beyond great sound. And it’s true, you can take the Prime’s great sound as a given: it’s a composed, dynamic and thoughtful listen, always alert for the finest details buried in the vinyl and with a particularly keen facility for bringing the emotion of a singer to the fore.

But it’s also an extraordinary piece of industrial design. Every component is super-engineered, and it simply goes without anything that isn’t essential. Take the platter, for example: it’s 9kg of milled aluminium, and so smoothly finished there’s no need for a mat on top of it.

Best for craftsmanship: SME Model 15A

If the VPI Prime is a NASCAR - American, uncomplicated, potent - then the SME Model 15A is a Formula 1 car.

SME is a company that makes every component of its turntables (except the cartridge, which is supplied by the aforementioned Clearaudio) in-house - that’s every component, right down to nuts, washers and screws. Nothing is left to chance, no trust is placed in any other company. And the result is an exquisitely built record player that feels constructed to survive a medium-sized detonation.

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At 20kg, it’s hefty, and at a touch over £8,000 it’s undeniably expensive. But that money buys you a turntable that not only sounds superb – balanced, packed with authority and capable of hitting hard enough to rattle your windows – but qualifies as a work of engineering art.

Yes, it looks pretty odd, and yes, it’s a bugger to dust. But it’ll still be working perfectly when you eventually hand it over to your grandchildren.